Mono 2.8 is out, with C# 4 support, new garbage collector and much more

A new major version of Mono, the open-source cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework, has been released. Mono is a binary-compatible implementation of C# and the Common Language Runtime (CLR) which allows developers to build in any language supported on the CLR and then deploy to a wide range of platforms, which include Linux, Windows, OS X, BSD and Solaris, as well as more abstract platforms such as the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and the iPhone.

Mono version 2.6 is still the latest Long Term Support edition, the next of those being 3.0, so users requiring stability should stick with Mono 2.6. If you want the latest features and faster bug turnaround then give Mono 2.8 a go.

There’s a lot of new features in this release. Support has been added for C# 4.0, which is the new default profile. There is also a new Generational Garbage Collector, which has shown significantly faster response times when cleaning up memory according to Sones. There’s also a huge stack of Frameworks added from a variety of open-source licenses, including ASP.NET 4, Parallel Framework, XAML and System.Dynamic, MEF, ASP.NET MVC2, and many more. Among the less substantial changes are OpenBSD support, the removal of dependencies on GLIB and the removal of deprecated libraries.

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